Tuesday, October 29, 2013

This post has been a long time coming. It has not been easy to write it, much less click on the publish button, a task that I will undertake in just a few short minutes. It is a test. It is not for me; it is for you. What is it testing, you ask? Well, it's testing a few things. It's testing how much you know about mental illness, it's testing how much you will admit to yourself that you don't know about mental illness, it's testing how willing you are to admit that you may be wrong/have been wrong/have wrongly judged others and it's testing your willingness to adopt a new way of thinking.

BE AWARE that there are things written below about me that you, unless you are a part of a very small group did not know. You won't like them. You may be put off by them, freaked out by them, surprised, not surprised, horrified, bewildered or disgusted by them. Therin lies the test. let's see how you feel about me and mental illness when you're done reading. When you are feeling feelings and thinking thoughts, take a step back and look at them, look at what they say about you, your values, your opinions and your genuine understanding.

You also may not give a shit. The world does not, after all, revolve around me. But I feel like I have something to say, and I have a bee in my bonnet about an issue (SURPRISE!) so I wrote about it.

I am ready to tell
this story.It’s possibly a good idea to
grab a coffee and sit down.

I’m afraid of the
dark.I’m not ashamed to admit it.Ever since watching The Sixth Sense I’m
always uneasy when I’m alone and low on light.Donnie Wahlberg cuts a sobering image: naked except for a greyish pair
of sagging y-fronts, quivering and hunkered, cloaked in despair as he hisses
‘Do you know why you’re afraid when you’re alone?I do; I do.’Don’t get me wrong; I don’t see dead people.But I do feel stuff, I feel a lot.Sometimes, when I awake in the night needing
to pee, I look to every gloomy corner en route to the can, expecting to see a
dark figure, motionless, watching me stumble around with a full bladder and
terrible night vision.There is never
anything there, but it doesn’t stop me from looking every single time.I’m also afraid of space.I’m much
more afraid of space.I don’t mean just,
like, the space underneath the tallboy, with all the pet hair dust bunnies, odd
socks and a dog food can that rolled under there after Bettie the bulldog stole
it from the recycling and licked it clean.I mean the space that you can only visit with a rocket.You know, that place where nobody can hear
you scream?I’ll be the first to admit
it; it’s a stupid fear.I know
that.The chance that in my lifetime
someone will force me to go into space is ridiculously minute, yet the thought
of feeling the effects of a complete lack of gravity and seeing the earth in
its entirety makes me feel sick to my stomach.Yuck.It started when I was a
little kid.I would lie in bed and try
to wrap my brain around space.I would
think about our solar system, and then what contained that, and then what
contained that, and then what
contained that and then my brain
would pop and I would gasp, feeling all of a sudden very very very small, and I
would shake my head to get the thoughts out and start all over with something
much more manageable, like Monkey (the tv show) and whether Tripitaka was a boy
or a girl.Ever since then, I hated
learning or thinking about space.I
imagined being out there and something catastrophic happening.I imagined myself being separated from my
pals and floating off into nothingness, nothing to grab hold of, no possible
way to claw myself back.I would die alone,
cold and without any books.It wasn’t
the first or last time I’ve been afraid of being alone.

All of my life I’ve
been very different to everyone else.I
know it.I’ve felt it, I’ve been told
it, and I’ve revelled in it.I’ve
learned to be not only ok with it, but very proud of it.I’m actually quite proud of the fact that I’m
able to be proud of it, if you know what I mean, because it has been a very
challenging state of mind to achieve.Being a bit odd, individual or ‘unique’ is one thing, but the day that a
doctor slapped a label on it became quite another.‘You have moderate depression and stress, and
extreme anxiety’, he stated without any perceptible element of emotion
whatsoever, ‘I will give you some medication for this.’So he sent me home with a prescription in my
hand and a big fat cloud bobbing over my head. I went home in a daze, collapsed on the bed
and cried my eyes out, repeating ‘I don’t wanna have depression’ over and
over.The first thing to surprise me was
the way my wonderful Mercedes reacted.She told me
that having depression and anxiety, to her, is the same as having asthma and
that as long as I learned how to manage it, it shouldn’t be a problem.So, I Googled.I Googled depression, I Googled anxiety, I
Googled Prozac and then I Googled cats that say ‘oh no no no no’ just for good
measure.I feel a certain kinship with
them now; since wandering into this depression caper I have found myself
chanting that same melancholy mantra from time to time.

Allow me to describe
a little of what I went through before finally going to see a doctor about my
behaviour…

Like I said, I’d
always been a bit strange.Many people
who know me would probably be surprised to find out that I have had—at certain
times in my life—a nasty temper.I’ve
never taken it out on anyone else, but I sure have punched a lot of stuff.I’m not proud of it; neither am I ashamed, as
I understand it now.I’ve punched walls, doors, windows, fences, tables,
cupboards, cars, dirt, beds, water, a fridge and my own face.The most painful one is the face, cos that
hurts both your fists and your face.The
second most painful was the time I punched a shop front window and broke my
hand in two places.The least painful
was actually the fence.You might be
reading this and thinking ‘why would you punch stuff?Were you drunk?’Yes, sometimes I was.Sometimes I wasn’t.The common denominator isn’t alcohol; it’s
frustration.My frustration came from
all sorts of things, and for the most part, I felt like it was somebody else’s
fault.Interestingly enough, as it turns
out, it was completely mine.This year,
it all came to a head.This year was
definitely the year for punching my face.It’s the weirdest thing.If I was
having a confrontation with Mercedes, and I felt like it was going nowhere
and nothing was being resolved, I would notice a feeling of helplessness creep
in like rolling fog, silent and sombre, somehow quite final.The sense of despair at this was tangible for
me, and it built up very quickly, much like a filling bathtub.You keep checking and checking it and it’s nowhere
near deep enough and then all of a sudden it has overflowed and there is a
river running through the house carrying all sorts of debris in its
current.I would be very calm and quiet
and then all of a sudden BANG it was too much to handle and then my fists would
be flying at my own face.It was like a
pressure release and a ridiculous malfunction at the same time.I felt very small inside my mind, like a shy
child hovering at the back of a room, as some awful invisible puppeteer turned
my own body against itself.I imagine it
was quite scary to see, and thankfully it always signalled the end of the
fight, because Mercedes couldn’t stand to let it go on.

So there was
that.Then, there was the endless
striving for perfection and the endless guilt because, naturally, perfection is
never actually realised.There were the
days I couldn’t get out of bed except to pee.There were the days I forgot to eat.There were the times that instead of resorting to the face punching, I
would suddenly find myself wedged into a corner, scrambling to become as small
as possible, covering my head and screaming for Mercedes to get away from me
until my voice was hoarse and I could scream no more.So, yeah, it was less than ideal.I felt crazy.I felt very unlike myself, or at least the impression of myself that I
had come to believe.All Mercedes said
to me was ‘I don’t care what’s going on; we can get through it together.It’s only going to be a problem for me if you
don’t go do something about it.’So, I
did, and thus began my conscious journey through mental illness.

The first thing I had
to do was wrap my brain around what it meant to have a name for what I was
feeling.I hit a hurdle immediately when
I was doing this reflecting.I found myself
wondering why I had to ‘wrap my brain around it’ at all.When I was constantly feeling sick in my
tummy, I went to the doctor to get to the bottom of it.After many unsavoury tests, they told me that
I had IBS and that my intestines had trouble processing sugars.I was glad to know that, because then I knew
how to stop the pain in my belly, end of story.So why was I so intent on ‘wrapping my brain around’ mental illness?Why was it even an issue?I had an explanation about why I was behaving
so strange, now I had to start to work towards addressing that behaviour.Why was I worrying about telling my family,
my friends?Why was I worried about my
roller derby team and league finding out?Why was I worried about my reputation?Why was I ok with my sporting mates knowing I suffered from asthma but
not quite ok with telling them that it was actually, more accurately,
twenty-five per cent asthma, seventy-five per cent anxiety?The only answer I could think of was that
there is a generally-held view by a lot of people that having a mental illness
is somehow taboo. The more I thought
about this and the more I learned about things like depression, anxiety, PTSD,
ADHD, bipolar disorder and many other things, the more it irritated me.The fact is, that anyone, anyone has the capacity to feel
depressed or anxious.Why is it that
when a label is applied to it as a ‘condition’ or ‘affliction’ instead of simply
an emotion it’s a whole different kettle of fish?Imagine a person who identifies as ‘perfectly
fine’, with no physical or mental health issues.Then, imagine their parents die in a horrible
car crash.Then, imagine their partner
leaves them a week later.Then, imagine
all of their hair falls out from the stress.They then are so preoccupied with everything going on that they trip on
a crack in the sidewalk, face plant, chip both front teeth, and discover that
their private health cover actually doesn’t cover dental.Odds are that person will feel depressed, and
rightly so.It would be a bit weird if
they didn’t.And take anxiety.It’s a perfectly natural emotion.Imagine you are snorkelling off the Great
Barrier Reef and you look up to see a big black fin approaching you.The feeling that hits you first would most
likely be anxiety; that’s a pretty anxious situation.So why is it that if it’s simply an emotion,
it’s nothing to blink an eye at, but as soon as someone is diagnosed with a mental illness, it’s all of a sudden a very
serious, mysterious and scary thing?That’s not a rhetorical question; I don’t know the answer and I’m asking
you why.

In my case, it seems
that a few things were going on.Apparently, my serotonin reuptake function was on the fritz and was
whipping away all my delicious happy juice too quickly.Enter Prozac, one of many serotonin reuptake
inhibitors on the market.Also, I had
developed a couple of behaviours in childhood that had become so ingrained in
my psyche that I had no idea they were ruling my life with an iron fist.Enter my shrink—a person with years of
training in psychology—who helped me to identify these behaviours and
reorganise my thinking.Enter my
recovery.He reckons I won’t need to be
on Prozac forever, but even if I do, I decided a long time ago that I don’t
care.Like a person whose pancreas don’t
produce enough insulin, if my brain doesn’t balance things properly and I need
a little help to regulate it, then hurrah for the twenty-first century.

So, as far as I’m
concerned, I don’t feel ‘ill’.I didn’t
feel ‘ill’ when I was stuck in my bed and afraid I was going to get sent to an
asylum a la American Horror Story and be skinned by Bloodyface.I just felt that something was not right and
that I needed to figure out what it was.So, is it the term itself?Is it
hearing the words ‘mental illness’ that makes people edgy and triggers them to
wonder if the person in question is going to have a psychotic episode and chase
them down the street, all flailing arms and banshee wail, wearing undies on
their head?It seems so extreme to
me.Mental illness… I feel like for me,
and potentially lots of other people, it’s not so much that I’m ‘mentally ill’,
but much more like I’m ‘emotionally confused’.They changed the term ‘learning disability’ to ‘learning difficulty’.Why?Essentially they mean the same thing.Was it because of the stigma attached to the former?What if we changed ‘Mental illness’ to
‘emotional difficulty’?Would society as
a whole be a little more calm about it?Would consumers be a bit more ready to admit what they’re feeling to
their friends, colleagues and families?Because it isn’t going away, and I’m ok with that.I know that my asthma will always play up
depending on the season.I know that my
guts will hate too much sugar and milk forever.I know that if I don’t give myself at least the simplest of routines,
then I’m prone to, over time, suffer a lack of motivation which, unchecked can
easily creep into depression territory.What I’m not ok with is meeting people every day who are hesitant to admit
that something’s going on because they feel that to admit it will change things
forever and hold them back, when all it would do is ensure that they are more
in touch with their own bodies and personalities.

Like I said, I hate
space.So, I went and saw Gravity, with
Sandra Bullock and the delightful salt and peppery George Clooney.I was petrified.I shook and gripped Mercedes' hand so
tight she went ‘ouch’.But I got through
it and only looked away from the screen twice.And I’ll go back to see it again, just for good measure, because I am
stronger than my fear; just like I am stronger than a label.Mental illness is not a dirty word, but
ignorance is.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

No, it isn't. Just like it isn't time to sell heroin to children, rob the elderly à la the opening scene in Mystery men or kidnap some nuns, force them to strip for nothing except torn up pages of their own bibles, shoved unceremoniously in their lacy underwear by the guys who come to your door and try to get you to sign over with their electric company.
It's just two people wedding each other; it's time to say yes to same-sex marriage.
In 1895, women (who were British subjects and 21 or over) were granted the right to vote in South Australia. 1895. The first parliamentary elections in Australia were held in 1843. That's fifty-two long years of women being classified as second-class citizens. In 1962, the Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that Indigenous people should have the right to vote, though under Commonwealth legislation, it was illegal to encourage them to. NINETEEN-SIXTY-WHAT-THE-FUCKING-TWO. Not even sixty years ago. I'm not going to digress down that particular road, because I'll be here writing for too many hours on end, but suffice to say Indigenous Australians are still struggling for equality, and so am I.
We struggle for different reasons, neither of them is more important than the other, and they are equally ridiculous.
This is 2013. It's easy for people to sit in their living rooms with their moccasin-clad feet resting high on their matching poufs and tutt-tutt about how terrible it is that Aboriginals weren't allowed to vote until the 60s. 'Isn't it terrible, Mabel! You'd think it was the seventeen hundreds! Such antiquated and bigoted views! I'm glad Australia sorted itself out; we really are the lucky country', takes a sip of red bought from a boutique winery in the Barossa worth $80 a pop.
'Oh yes, Nigel, I wholeheartedly agree... and by the way, Macy and Julie invited us over for dinner.'
'From next door? The spinsters?'
'Well, yes, but they aren't spinsters, they're a couple; in fact I believe they were married last week.'
'Married? How? They're both women!'
At this point the couple stop what they're doing, look at each other and pause, then erupt in tittering laughter, like some pointy-nosed green bitch from the Wizard of Oz and an evil ho-hoing Santa. Then they high five, each give their poufs a good kick in the ribs and then pick their teeth with the bones of baby bilbies.
Well, that's how I see it.
I don't care what your religious views are. That's not to say I don't respect your beliefs, because I do. I respect choice. I have made mine; I don't shove it down people's throats, because I don't appreciate when they try to shove theirs down mine. What I do care about is that other people's beliefs are standing in the way of me being treated equally, in this so-called 'lucky' country.
The WA School Education Act states that the curriculum and teaching in public schools is not to promote any particular religious practice, denomination or sect, and goes on to say that public schools provide a secular education to students and families from many different cultural backgrounds and faiths. In NSW, parents can choose if they want their kids to attend religious instruction in school, and in ACT, parents have to actually request if they want their kid to receive it. So, the free, public, available-to-all education that our country provides teaches kids that in these times, in our society, we don't identify as a particular faith, because we welcome beliefs from all walks of life and are tolerant to them all.
Tolerant...
Then, little Johnny grows up, graduates from high school, falls in love with James, wants to spend his whole life with him but is told 'whaaaaaaat?!?!?! You two can't marry!! The bible says so!'
Johnny furrows his brows and says 'what the fuck's a bible?' cos his family is atheist, and he was always taught in school that religion is a choice, but our nation does not force it on us...
WHAT A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT.
I'm a good person. I love kids, and they have always loved me, because I don't give a shit how I look and I'll be a dick in public if it makes them smile. What's that? You wanna play dragons in the supermarket aisles? Well you better run, cos my wings are bigger than yours. I volunteer in a prison once a week, helping the residents with literacy and numeracy (though I suck at long division). I once rescued a baby plover (the birds I hate the most of all birds) from peril, as it had fallen in the gutter, even as its mother attacked me. I am not a monster, I'm just in love with a woman when I also happen to be a woman. Together, we own a house. We donate to the Guide Dogs and the Australian Conservation Foundation. We're good fucking people, goddam it, but we're treated like second-class citizens.
Why do I pay the same taxes as straight people? I pay the same money for less rights.
Am I getting through to you yet? No? Then I'm guessing you're straight. Try this: imagine that you are in love with someone of the opposite sex. Imagine that you simply cannot picture your life without them. Imagine that you feel like you've always loved them, and that you can't wait to see how cute they look with wrinkles. You look at pictures of Paris and imagine you and them atop the Eiffel tower, wind whipping your hair around each other's faces as you embrace and whisper how perfect the moment is. Like, seriously, this person is the shit. Then, imagine that they only have one leg. It doesn't matter to you; you don't even notice. It's a non-event, beyond insignificant. Who needs two legs? You can get by with one. It's just a leg. A person's worth isn't defined by a leg, that's ridiculous. Things are going great, and you decide to get married. You become engaged, and it's the happiest day of your life. You start planning your wedding. Then, all of a sudden, you find out that you can't be married. Two-leggers can't marry one-leggers, dummy! E'rybody know dat! Where you been living, under a rock? No fucking way! That would be an abomination! You two are not normal, your relationship isn't natural. I mean, if you want to be a couple, that's fine (make sure you tell centrelink so that they can pay you less though), but nooooooo, you don't get to be married. That's only for the two-legger couples. You can't believe it. You see forward flashes of your life together, hanging out with all your two-legger married couple friends... you're all having fun, they think it's stupid too, but you always know, deep down inside, that in the eyes of your government, you are less than equal.
If you still don't get it, fuck off outta my blog, ya maggoty bigot. Go on, get.
So, that was just some ranty stuff to ponder... now onto the nice stuff.
Anyhow, I proposed to Mercedes on Sunday at the Adelaide Roller Derby grand final. Not gunna lie, I'm pretty chuffed with myself. She is the queen of surprises, so I knew I had to go big. She'd been nonchalantly dropping little hints for over a year, saying how her friend proposed to his girlfriend with a ring from a 20c machine, saying how a twisted up piece of straw would suffice, as long as it was circular, showing me stuff like this. It was always accompanied by an assurance that there was no pressure, but I knew she was basically saying 'I'm ready when you are.'
The problem was that I just don't have the money for a traditional ring, you know, made of gold and with shiny rocks in it. But, I knew it was time. It felt so right; I'd never been more sure of anything in my life. So, I got to thinking... I knew if I made her something, it would mean a lot more than if I bought something. She'd shown me these cute robots, and we would like to get them tattooed. So, I decided to draw the boy one on shrinky-dink paper and I got my beautiful friend Letta to help me make it into a ring.
As it happens, shrinky-dink paper can be a tricky business, so I had to make quite a few before I sorted out a good method. I curled up a few first. They came out of the oven like little circular robot wheels; I felt cruel throwing them away. I made various sizes, colours and even one was on skates. I then gave them to Letta to mount, and the game was away.
Bout day came and I woke up surprised that I had fallen asleep at all. I still wasn't nervous, but I thought it was maybe cos it was still hours away. Once at the showgrounds, I made sure everything was as it should be. The commentators were prepared, Kit Cat had the ring that I'd chosen from the multitude poor Letta had to make, and a lovely bow tied around her neck.
We did the skate out, and the two teams playing first headed to their benches. I hung around awkwardly, running over my lines in my head, and counting them out on my fingers. The commentators were handing out a big novelty cheque to our chosen charity. I finally started to feel my heart jumping in my chest, and I noticed I was shifting my weight from foot to foot and exhaling through pursed lips.
They finished the presentation. Then Lori, our head commentator had the mic and walked over to me. She handed it over and I headed into the crowd. Kids I knew were in the front row; one of them looked up at me and said 'you're awesome', to which I replied 'YOU'RE awesome, now get outta my way.' Behind me on the track, my whole team lined up on a knee as well. I fucking love them.
Mercedes could tell I was heading for her, and her face said 'whaaaaaat are you doing?' I reached her and didn't really know where to begin, so I introduced her to the whole crowd of approximately 2700 people. A strange calm came over me and I looked deep into her eyes. Then, I took a knee and said 'baby...'
She gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. She began to cry, which was not my intention, but I was in too deep to stop by then. I (as calmly and clearly as I could) recited the following words that I had written the week before, and practiced many times whilst delivering pizza:

You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,

I fell in love with you the moment we met.

You were everything I'd ever searched for,

and everything I could ever want for the rest of my life.

You're my best friend, my soul mate

and the woman I want to spend eternity with.

Will you marry me?

The crowd erupted. I reached to Kit Cat for the ring, and it flew onto her finger like it was magnetic. In the video, it looks like she's going 'gimme gimme' hehe... She grabbed me and held me so tight that I didn't hear almost three thousand people, I just heard her telling me that she loved me. If you'd like to see a video, it's here.

And that was that. We already have received an incredible amount of support from so many people who tell us over and over how stupid it is that we can't legally be married. Hopefully it's just a matter of time until we're seen as actual real human beings who deserve the same rights as everyone else.

It's been a while since I've written a post. There is a reason for it, but now isn't the time to tell it.

Thanks for reading:)

Tx

P.S. The Salty Dolls won the grand final. They played amazingly. So did we, and it was close, but they ooched us out. It was the most fun game I'd played in all year. Afterwards, we partied until the wee hours, as a league, and it was perfect. I love the absolute shit out of my team and league. I've never played a sport before where that would happen. We've had a bit of a rough year, and I couldn't have possibly been more proud of the team if we had've won. Below is a pic of us after losing a game lol...

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About Me

I am of average height and intelligence. I can be irritable but I can also be tolerant, depends on my mood and what food is in the house. I want to be a writer but don't know if I can cut it so what better audience than one who is free to be scathing but remain anonymous? That's honesty.
I also like colourful shiny metal things like old school cups and coasters.